How can I run a safe simulation of downloading and executing a virus, and confirm Norman's antivirus product is performing as expected?

Problem description

How can I run a safe simulation of downloading and executing a virus, and confirm that my Norman antivirus protection is performing as expected?

Solution

There is a special file called Eicar. This is a file that doesn’t have any harmful content whatsoever, but is detected as the Eicar-virus by consensus from all antivirus companies. (For advanced users: this is the only ‘false positive’ that is kept in the definition files on purpose.)
Downloading and running Eicar is exactly the same as downloading and running a virus, except of course that there is absolutely no danger involved. If the Eicar file is intercepted/detected, the scanner is active and functional.

Note:
When executing this test through a remote session, you will not see the popup about a detected virus. In that case, just check whether the Eicar file is still where you put it after downloading and/or running it. If not, it was successfully removed by Norman.